


Compromise

by dancingpenguin57



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Morning After, Post-TLJ, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 18:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13393959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingpenguin57/pseuds/dancingpenguin57
Summary: They disagree about everything, until they don't.





	Compromise

Rey woke slowly, basking gloriously in the warmth surrounding her.

When she finally decided to open her eyes she saw her clothes folded neatly on the bedside table, and realisation hit her like lightning.

She knew that it was just a well-meaning service droid that had attended to her laundry, but it burned her to know that she had been discovered. The little metal spy was probably gossiping to all of its droid friends right now, laughing about how the girl from the Resistance had come to negotiate for Ryloth, but instead had ended up in Kylo Ren’s bed.

She sprung roughly from the circle of his arms, sitting up on the edge of the bed and pulling her tunic over her head.

“Rey…” he began.

“I have to go.”

“Why?” He sounded as if he genuinely didn’t know the painfully obvious truth.

“Because I don’t belong here. Because this isn’t what I came for.” She wrapped the coverlet around her waist so she could shimmy her pants on without revealing anything.

She heard him sigh, and then the rustle of the sheets as he fell back against them. The sound transported her back to last night, and the way he had smiled up at her when she rolled them over to pin him beneath her. She remembered the way he had leaned up to kiss her, and _ached_.

Suddenly she was furious. She turned angrily to face him.

“Why were you like that?” she demanded.

“Like what?”

“Like… you were young, and happy, and sweet. Like it was simple for you.” _Like you were in love me_ , she wanted to say, but she knew how he would respond to that and she wasn’t strong enough to hear it.

He looked hurt, and she was surprised at how much that hurt _her_. “I wasn’t being ‘like’ anything. I was just being with you.”

She was quickly reaching her breaking point, so she turned back from him and moved to stand, but his hand snaked out to grip her wrist, holding her in place.

“Please don’t go.”

She ripped herself from him and stood, cursing her uncooperative fingers as they fumbled with her arm wraps. She heard him dressing behind her and felt an insane sense of urgency, because she knew that he would soon move around the bed and force her to look at him again. She managed to complete one wrap, but of course he was already in front of her, because all he had bothered to do was put on pants. He wrapped his hands lightly around her shoulders, looking at her imploringly.

“Rey, just _stay_. That’s all you have to do. It could be so easy.”

She hated herself for allowing her eyes to fill with tears. It had been easy. Holding him and touching him and feeling him inside her had been easy. Giggling to him in the dark afterwards had been easy. Falling asleep in his arms as he whispered endearments into her hair had been the easiest thing she’d ever done.

But it was morning now, and the light it brought was harsh and cruel and exquisitely difficult.

“It would be easy for me,” she admitted. “But what about the thousands of billions of other people out there that you want to crush under your heel, even though they’ve done nothing wrong to you, or to anyone?”

He frowned then, his eyes locking onto hers with such intensity that she wondered if he was using the Force to keep her from looking away.

“That’s not what I want, Rey. You don’t understand what it was like. The Sith -- the Empire -- they weren’t perfect, but they were better than what came before. _And_ what came after. This galaxy is full of scum, and it needs to be controlled. The Hutts ran rampant in the Outer Rim for decades. You would have seen some taste of that, on Jakku. You _lived_ that. You hate the Empire for it, but that’s illogical; it was destroyed years before you were born. Your loneliness, your suffering -- that had nothing to do with the Empire, or the First Order. That was the Republic. The Senate was nothing more than a one-thousand year-long experiment in incompetency. It’s time to try something new.”

He paused to let her take it all in.

Doubt crept into her, but she shook her head to chase it away. “You really expect me to believe that you intend to rule the galaxy _benevolently_?”

“I’m not a sadist,” he said, but all she could hear were the things he _didn’t_ say.

She finally broke eye contact, trying to find a neutral point straight ahead of her, but locking instead onto the scar she had given him as it crossed over his clavicle. She had kissed him there gently, and then sucked her way up his neck, less gently, and he had moaned.

“How do you think it should be?” he asked, bringing her back to the present. There was something about his voice that told her he would challenge anything that she dared to say.

Rey bit her lip, thinking. “It should -- I mean -- I don’t know, I don’t know anything about politics. But… people should be able to live their lives the way they choose.”

“That’s called ‘anarchy’.”

She rose her eyes to his again, glaring. “No, it’s called _freedom_.”

He was unperturbed. “And what about those who use their freedom to choose lives of crime? The ones who get pleasure from stealing, killing, raping? Who buy and sell children to use as slaves?”

This struck her exactly as he knew it would. “They can’t! They shouldn’t.”

“So there needs to be a line,” he said, simply.

“Yes, of course!”

“And who should draw it? And then keep it drawn?”

“I -- the Senate. Democracy.” She wasn’t sure about this, but it seemed like something General Organa would say, so it must have a ring of truth.

He shook his head. “The Senate couldn’t protect you, Rey. They couldn’t protect anyone. And so we circle back.”

He was right, but he was also so _wrong_ , but she didn’t know how to make him realise that.

“How do you think it should be?” he asked again, gently this time.

“You already asked me that.”

His grip on her shoulders tightened, just a little, just to make sure she paid close attention. “Yes, and I’ll _keep_ asking you that. Every day. If you stay. I don’t expect your answers to be reasonable. You’re an idealist. But I’ll help you work them into something more… practical.”

Rey sighed, nodding, because finally he had reached the crux. She broke free of his touch, taking half a step back. “See, that’s the problem Ben, life shouldn’t _be_ ‘practical’...” she trailed off. “Well, fine, maybe it should. But not the kind of practical that you’re thinking!”

“And what kind of ‘practical’ do you think I am thinking?” he reached for her again, almost as if it were involuntary, and she allowed him to, because truthfully she already missed the contact.

“You want everything to be stable, regimented, with everyone following your rules exactly, but that’s not how people are. Maybe that keeps people safe, but it doesn’t make them _happy_. Life should be… fun. Silly, sometimes. Spontaneous.”

He smirked. “Maybe you have a point. I very much like your spontaneity last night.” His hands left her shoulders to trace paths of fire down her arms until his fingertips met hers. “But consider this: your spontaneity may have lead to us having _one_ night together, but my practicality will give us opportunity to repeat those events _every_ night.”

Her entire body burned at his presumption. She had been struggling before to articulate her thoughts, but now it was impossible.

“But… we’ll disagree on everything,” she said.

“I know. That’s our destiny,” he said nonchalantly, as if he were commenting on the weather. “But I’ll meet you halfway, if you do the same.”

“But... we’ll disagree,” she repeated.”On _everything_. Not just the big things, but --” she glanced wildly around the room, looking for something to complain about “-- but these sheets, okay, I _hate_ them, why are they _slippery_?” She felt stupid for comparing his sheets to the fate of the galaxy, but he didn’t seem to mind her pettiness.

He smiled, and his face drifted closer to hers. “We can get new sheets.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “No, see, you obviously like these sheets.”

He raised his hands to her face to gently hold her steady. “I like you more. We’ll find sheets that we both like.”

An image swam into her mind of them picking out sheets together, and for some reason _that_ was what finally convinced her that they might be able to make this work.

“I want you to give full pardons to everyone in the Resistance,” she heard herself say.

“Alright.”

Her mind scrabbled at all the infinite injustices in the world that she needed to fix. “And I want you to stop taking children from their families and forcing them to become soldiers.”

His hands left her face and he leaned back from her, frowning as if he were disappointed. “That practice has already been ceased.”

This surprised her. It must have shown on her face.

“ _I_ never wanted that, Rey,” he said firmly. He crossed his arms over his chest, and confusion flooded her as she recognised it as a protective gesture.

“Well… good. If you can do those things then--”

“This is mutual, you know,” he interrupted, and his voice was low and dangerous. “You have to do something for me, in return.”

“What?”

His voice was steady, but a flicker in his eyes betrayed him. “Have faith in me. If you don’t like something, then use your words and _talk_ to me. Don’t assume the worst. Don’t reach for a lightsaber every time you think things aren’t going your way.”

A pang of guilt rushed through her.

She nodded, and the dark fog lifted from his visage.

She reached for his face then, feeling that it was necessary to reciprocate the gesture. She leaned up into him and he didn’t hesitate to meet her lips. When they parted he smiled at her.

“Alright, you may tell your friends to come out of hiding. No harm will come to them from anyone under our command.”

_Our_ command. Her mind reeled. Just like that, he had given her the galaxy. As if it were some simple little thing; as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do.

“Thank you,” she said. His smile widened, and she felt an intense desire to do and say more things to keep it on his face, because he was beautiful that way. “Actually, they can wait a little while longer, right? We’ve made a lot of progress; I think we deserve a break.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Really? How do you think things should be today, Rey?”

She pretended to mull it over, but couldn’t quite keep the sly grin off her face. “I think we should let the galaxy fend for itself for a little while.”

She leaned up to kiss him again, walking them backwards until her knees hit the bed. She reached an arm out blindly behind her so she could lower herself to it.

“Wait,” he said suddenly, breaking apart from her. “The sheets.”

“I think I can put up with them for one more day,” she decided.


End file.
